Grant Guidance. Thomas-Forbes & Kester, LLC

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1 Grant Guidance Thomas-Forbes & Kester, LLC V OM LAU RM CE H 32, 0 I1S1 S U E 3 The skill of writing is to create a context in which other people can think. Edwin Schlossberg I N S I D E T H I S I S S U E : Fitting Grants Into Your Busy Schedule Workshop Registration Form Funder Spotlight: PepsiCo Foundation Grants Questions Answered Upcoming Grant Opportunities Save the Date! For our Arkansas subscribers mark your calendar for the morning of June 1st, when the Fayetteville Public Library, Association of Fundraising Professionals NWA Chapter, and the Arkansas Chapter of the Grant Professionals Association will be hosting a Meet the Funders event featuring local foundations and funding agencies as well as grants training. More information on this event will be coming soon! Become a Federal Grant Reviewer for the Administration for Children & Families As a grant seeker, you spend a great deal of time selecting the right funding sources to apply to and preparing a competitive application. But once you submit, the funding decision rests in the hands of the grant reviewers who read your application and score it alongside those of other applicants. The Administration for Children & Families is currently seeking grant reviewers. These reviewers will read a set of submitted proposals, evaluate the proposals against the evaluation criteria, participate in panel discussions with other reviewers to reconcile scores, and submit those scores to ACF. Contact us! Cheryl Kester, CFRE ckester@cox.net (479) The best way to gain insight into how this process works is to become a reviewer yourself. Getting experience as a grant reviewer will give you a better understanding of how reviewers think about your applications and will help you make your own applications more competitive in the future. Being a reviewer is also a great way to network with federal funding agency representatives. You can find more information and register as a grant reviewer at this address: sitepage.aspx?key=home Several TFK Associates have served as grant reviewers and have found it to be a helpful experience. We encourage you to sign up to help improve your own grant seeking success in the future!

P A G E 2 Fitting Grants Into Your Busy Schedule If you are a Development Director or Executive Director in a small shop, you are likely responsible for grants as well as annual giving, major gifts,

2 P A G E 2 Fitting Grants Into Your Busy Schedule If you are a Development Director or Executive Director in a small shop, you are likely responsible for grants as well as annual giving, major gifts, events, and other fundraising efforts. Grants are time consuming and require dedicated attention. So how do you get quality grant proposals written and out the door while you are also trying to get that newsletter written, the meetings of your events committee scheduled, and receipts and thank-yous sent out on time? Here are some tips to help you become a successful grant seeker among many other responsibilities. Advanced planning is the key to a successful grants program in small shops in which a few staff juggle many fundraising responsibilities. 1. Maintain a grants calendar that accounts for your busy times. Before your year begins, create a grants calendar that lists all the grant opportunities you want to apply for and their deadlines. Then consider when your busiest times of the year will be when your direct mail pieces will go out, when your events will be held, etc. Plan to work on your grant proposals in the down times when you know you will have the time to focus on them. For instance, if a grant proposal is due in November but your big event is in October, consider working on the grant in late summer so that you will have little to do during event season. This will help you pace yourself and get proposals finished at a time that will cause the least amount of stress. Even if you are waiting for a federal RFP to come out, you can begin designing your project and its evaluation plan, writing your organizational profile, and gathering commonly required documents ahead of time. 2. Work on proposals out of the office. Grant proposals require long periods of concentration, which can easily be interrupted by phone calls, s, and staff members popping in and out of your office. Schedule time to work on grant proposals and get away from the office. Turn off your phone and close your . This will help you concentrate. 3. Start early but expect last-minute emergencies. It seems like common sense but is worth repeating: start early. If you think it will take two weeks to complete a proposal, give yourself a month. We have all been caught by Murphy s Law: anything that can go wrong will go wrong. Your Project Director may change jobs, your evaluator may take a long time to review the evaluation plan, or the board member who must sign the application may leave town on vacation. Especially if you are a oneperson development office, any other fundraising responsibility may interfere at the last minute. Allow time for these things to happen. Advanced planning is the key to a successful grants program in small shops in which a few staff juggle many fundraising responsibilities. So plan your grants year, set aside time to write proposals, and start early to get quality proposals submitted on time. G R A N T G U I D A N C E

3 Spring Grants Workshops Grantseeking 101 Tuesday, March 8, 2011, 8:30 am - 12:30 pm Grantseeking Academy, Six-Week Course Tuesdays, April 5 May 10, 2011, 3:00 pm 5:00 pm Grantseeking Academy Six-Week Seminar - (2 hours per week) Deadline Extended Last Chance to Register for the Grantseeking Academy! The Grantseeking Academy is an intensive, hands-on learning experience. You attend the Academy 2 hours per week over six weeks so you have time to digest what you re learning and begin putting it into practice back at your agency. You receive an easy-to-read textbook, have homework, and receive one-on-one mentoring from professional grant writers. You will learn essential information about obtaining grants, and you will practice writing. Attendees receive and take with them: all of the resources from Grants 101 local foundation guidelines a grants notebook full of handouts a textbook that includes CD of sample proposals their own written proposal Registration fee: $425/ea* *Discount of $25/ ea for board/staff pairs Size Limit: Class limited to 15 participants To Register: Return the Registration Form on the next page. Questions? Call Registration Deadline: March 31, 2011 "We received news yesterday that a local family foundation is providing the funds for a permanently endowed scholarship with our organization! We simply would not have received this grant if it were not for our workshop with Thomas-Forbes & Kester." -- Jody Dilday, Executive Director, Single Parent Scholarship Fund of Washington County, Arkansas

4 Grants Workshop Registration Form Thomas-Forbes & Kester, LLC Complete Your Registration TODAY to Ensure You Have a Seat! Mail-in Registration: CALL to confirm your spot, then send the registration form-with payment (check or money order) payable to Thomas-Forbes & Kester, LLC-to Thomas-Forbes & Kester LLC, PO Box 184, Fayetteville, AR /FAX Registration: Complete this form and save or scan it and to Cheryl Kester at ckester@cox.net or FAX it to Your organization will be invoiced for the workshop fee. Payment due upon receipt or at the door. Credit cards are NOT accepted. Limited space available on a first-registered, first-served basis. No refunds are provided for cancellations with fewer than 24 hours notice. Questions? Call , or visit Registration Information Primary Registrant/Contact Person: Organization: Title/Position: Address: City/State/Zip: Phone: Address: Names of Additional Attendees from Your Organization: Please check the workshop(s) you wish to attend and the number attending each: # Attending o Grantseeking Academy, Six-Week Course Fee: $425/ea** Academy fee includes a textbook with CD of sample proposals Tuesdays, April 5 May 10, 2011, 3:00 pm 5:00 pm Registration Deadline: March 31 Payment Information Total Registration Fee(s) Due: $ Payment By: o Enclosed Check o Payment at Door o Invoice Me* *Note: If you wish to be invoiced, payment MUST be received prior to the event or at the event. No one is allowed to attend without payment being received.

5 PVA OG LE U 5M E 3, I Funder Spotlight: PepsiCo Foundation PepsiCo Foundation Funding Focus: Education, community development, health, and minorities Geographic Focus: National Eligibility: Schools and nonprofits Grant Range: Up to $100,000 Deadline: None More Information: PepsiCo Online The PepsiCo Foundation awards grants for education, community development, health, and minorities. The Foundation supports colleges, universities and high school programs supporting the success of students of color and students from low-income households. The Foundation focuses its health-related giving on programs that advance knowledge about leading healthy lifestyles and affecting positive behavior change. The Foundation supports organizations that create a positive environment for minority-owned and womenowned businesses as well as a supportive workplace for gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender individuals. Grant requests of $100,000 or less are evaluated by PepsiCo s Executive Committee. Applicants are notified of approval or denial within 30 days of submission. Grant requests in excess of $100,000 are reviewed in May and November of each year by PepsiCo s Board of Directors. Grants Questions Answered Q. My boss is pushing me to apply for a grant that I know is not a good fit for our organization. What should I do? A. This is a common problem. Sometimes we get pressure to apply for a grant for which our organization or project is not eligible. At other times, we may be asked to apply for an grant for which we know we will not be competitive. Look at this as an opportunity to educate your boss or board member on strong grant seeking strategies. If you are ineligible, show her the guidance and explain that applying will be costly in staff time and will not result in funding. If you won t be competitive, show him the funder s funding history if it shows no organizations like yours, or the description of what the funder is looking for that does not match what you want to do. If you are not able to convince her, call upon the advice of a consultant or trainer you have worked with before to provide an objective opinion. This outside person can back up your claims and can often convince staff or board members. Often you re the desire to apply stems from enthusiasm for the project and an eagerness for funding, so assure your boss that you will look for other funding opportunities that will be a better fit. Have a question? Send it to Cheryl to include in next month s newsletter!

Thomas-Forbes & Kester, LLC Grants Consultants Fayetteville, AR 72704 (479) 582-1053 info@tfkgrants.

com We are members of and follow the Codes of Ethics of : Thomas-Forbes & Kester, LLC is committed to serving non-profits through grant writing, training, strategic planning and program design and

6 Thomas-Forbes & Kester, LLC Grants Consultants Fayetteville, AR (479) We are members of and follow the Codes of Ethics of : Thomas-Forbes & Kester, LLC is committed to serving non-profits through grant writing, training, strategic planning and program design and evaluation. The principals and associates have been employed by non-profit organizations, been volunteers and served on non-profit boards. We know you and are committed to your mission. Please visit our website for more information: You may request to be removed from our newsletter mailing list at any time by sending an to ckester@cox.net. Upcoming Grant Opportunities Chamber Music America Classical Commissioning Program 305 Seventh Avenue New York, NY Tel: Grant Range: none Deadline: April 8 Giving for creating and performance of new chamber works by American composers For more information and to apply, visit Chamber Music America online. Surdna Foundation 330 Madison Ave., 30th Floor New York, NY Tel: questions@surdna.org Grant Range: varies Deadline: none Giving for projects related to climate change, green economy, transportation, smart growth For more information and to apply, visit Surdna Foundation online. Maddie s Fund 2223 Santa Clara Avenue, Suite B Alameda, CA Tel: (510) info@maddiesfund.org Grant Range: $5,000 to $27 million Deadline: none Giving to community collaborations working for the adoption of shelter dogs and cats For more information and to apply, visit Maddie s Fund online. Target Stores Grant Program Community.Relations@target.com Grant Range: Up to $2,000 Deadline: April 30, 2011 Giving to reading and arts programs for children and youth For more information and to apply, visit Target Stores Grants online.

Who can apply? Residents, neighborhood groups, and nonprofit organizations can apply for a NUF grant.

Who can apply? Residents, neighborhood groups, and nonprofit organizations can apply for a NUF grant. Neighborhood Unity Foundation Grants Program The Neighborhood Unity Foundation (NUF), in collaboration with San Diego Neighborhood Funders, is pleased to announce the 2011-2012 NUF Grants Program for the